Getting free

[kaberett]

• On Getting Free, by Mia McKenzie at Black Girl Dangerous
  
• you're made of memories you bury or live by (Vienna Teng)
  
• who only by moving can balance,/only by balancing move | here is temporarily who I am (Michael Donaghy both)
  
• you're growing old so young (Stars)

The thing I learned, that I needed to survive, was to make myself small. (I have talked before about the monstrosity inherent in learning to read and mould interactions; about how uncomfortable it makes people; about how it's a skill we learn because it is necessary.)

I learned that I was too loud and too messy and too opinionated and too much and too me. I learned to be silent and I learned to keep my hurts to myself and I learned not to trust people and I learned not to ever ask for help. I learned that I damaged people by existing. I did my best to make myself not exist.

It helped me survive.

It will not help me to get free.